MORAL VALUES IN “THE HUNGER GAMES” NOVEL TO BUILD STUDENTS’ CHARACTER Atikatul Himmah dan Evha Nazalatus Sa’adiyah Abstract - MORAL VALUES IN “THE HUNGER GAMES” NOVEL TO BUILD STUDENTS’ CHAR
STUDENTS’ CHARACTER
Atikatul Himmah* dan Evha Nazalatus Sa’adiyah**
Abstract
Nation should be build by putting character building in the first place, since
this character building that will make Indonesia become a big, glorious and
victorious and prestige country. This study aimed to (1) describe the moral
values in The Hunger Games Novel, (2) describe the moral values in The
Hunger Games Novel that could be implemented to build students’ character.
The result of the research is that there are some moral values in The Hunger
Games Novel that could be implemented to build students’ character which are
independent, friendly, work hard, discipline, love science, responsible, social
care and appreciate achievement. The implementation of character education
is not enough if only implemented in school or education. On the next phase,
character education should be implemented in society, government agency,
society organization, non-governmental organization, company and other
group society.Keywords: moral values, character education, The Hunger Games Novel
Education is important for us. We get it from formal education. It will facilitate us to have a better carrier and living. However, is the formal degree will guarantee us to have a good character?
Student as the future generation should have a good education about character and moral. Therefore, they will have good character and moral and will lead Indonesia into a better country. One way to do it is by novel. A good inspiring novel will lead its readers to be inspired by the novel.
Character education is important for the growth of a human individual as a whole and should be done early. However, that does not mean if you do not accommodate basic education of character building, educational institutions also felt no need to conduct it. It is important for an educational institution to not only pay attention to the needs of the academic competence of students, but also the character development so that graduates become
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graduates who are prepared academically and good character (Kamaruddin, 2012, p. 6).
Language studies or linguistic is a science of language from the perspective of structure, form, meaning and context while literature is the art of the written composition, divided in poetry, prose and theatre. And, literature is a part of applied linguistic in communication, and linguistic itself is a part of semiotic system. It is based on the parts of linguistics which have divided into three parts applied linguistic, descriptive linguistic, and theoretical linguistic. Literature is existed as a part of applied linguistics which viewed identification of literature itself as art communication. It is applied in the real world, Behren and Parker (2010:vii)
One achievements of the study of literature learnt the readers with moral included the body of literature brought. In addition, In Arnold’s well-known formula in (1869) cited from Geoff Hall (2005), by reading literature we can know the real world that reflects on its. Furthermore,
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MORAL VALUES IN “THE HUNGER GAMES” NOVEL TO BUILD
Kenygy (1983) adopted in Geoff Hall (2005; 86) says that novel is book- length story whose author tries to create the sense while the reader read, they experience the actual life. Novel is a long work of narrative prose faction. It relates to the truth of life. Wilfred et.al expressed “a novel is an extended prose narrative dealing with characters within the framework of a plot. Such a work is usually fictitious, but both characters and situations or events may be drawn from real life.” Both are prose fiction, deal in truths, both deal with problem and conflicts, both aim to entertain and to inform. In both, the elements of structure are found; plot, characterization, situation and theme.
According Wilfred et al (2005:37), Huckleberry stated “novel—that is, an extended prose narrative dealing with characters within the framework of a plot.” Novel was constructed two elements, are; external elements and internal elements. The study would analyze the moral value in in Suzanne Collin’s novel “The Hunger Games”. The writer choose Novel "The Hunger Games" because the Novel is very good to analyzing and the story of Novel has many strange phenomena which make the writer interest to analyze the Novel.
Theme is one of the most important intrinsic aspects of literary work. Hence, to decide the theme, it must represent the whole of the story. Of course, we must determine what its central purpose is: what view of life it supports or what insight into life it reveals. However, theme is not the moral of the story. It is not identical with the subject of the story. According to Kenny (1966, p. 88), to put the matter simply, theme is the meaning of the story. The theme of piece of fiction is its controlling idea or its central insight. It is the unifying generalization about life states or implied by the story (Perrine, 1984, p. 203).
In analyzing the content of the story, it is the third part that should be delivered after both of the subject matter and theme. In other word, message is a moral lesson that can be taken from the whole of the story. By the moral of the story, we usually mean a piece of rather practical moral advice that can be derived from the story (Kenney, 1966, p. 89). The moral must be rather simple, for it must be readily applicable to the readers’ own conduct. We may conclude that a moral is one of the simpler kinds of theme, while not all the themes are morals.
Perrine (1984, p. 206) states “moral” as a poor thing besides the living reality of the story. However, it is more faithful abstracting of the story’s content than any pat, cut-and-dried. The word “moral” is too narrow to fit the kind of illumination provided by a first-rate story. It is hardly suitable, for instance, for the kind of story that simple displays human character. Such as “moral” and “lesson” and “message” are therefore best avoided in the discussion of fiction, for instance; “Be kind to animals” or “look before you leap” or “Crime does not pay”.
But there is also the message of a story in sentence or paragraph formed. Actually, the purpose of literary storywriters is to give us a greater awareness and greater understanding of life, not inculcate a code of moral rules for regulating daily conduct (Perrine 1984, p. 205).
Moral values are the standards of good and evil, which govern an individual’s behavior and choices. Individual’s morals may derive from society and government, religion, or self.
Moral comes from the word “Mores” which means the traditional customs and ways of behaving that are typical of a particular (part of) society, the meaning of moral is the appropriateness to the common idea, which accepted to the society related to human behavior, which one is good and which one is
Atikatul Himmah & Evha Nazalatus, Moral Values in “The Hunger Games”…
and moral, the difference is that ethic is theoretical whereas moral is practical, (Gunawan, 2012, p. 13).
Three elements of moral reasoning, feeling and action has to be exist and developed in moral education. Besides those three elements, the society commonly emphasize on the importance of faith and existential believe in increasing morality. Tendency of disintegration and suspicion in this nation is caused by the crisis of trust. Said that parallel relation between high morality of someone with faith or believe and its existence. (Budiningsih, 2004, p. 7)
Concept of moral values is closely related to kindness that exists in object- subjects. Perhaps an object-subject is good but valueless to someone in a context of certain event. Therefore, kindness is more stick to the object or to the context whether value is more showing someone’s attitude toward something good.
Darmadi (2012) mentioned that universal values occur to all humankind just like human right, whether the particular values only occur for some certain group of human, or in certain occasion. Eternal values occur whenever and wherever just like freedom to have religion, which means that all human is free from forces of personal or social group, so that no one is allowed to be forced to act in contradiction to his/her faith.
Sensitivity of obedience toward humanity values has faded. Then often humanity values is misinterpreted and emerging arrogant attitude that wrong like punishing people who’s not guilty. Ironically, this thing is happen when human right is highly upheld. Darmadi (2012) stated that the meaningfulness values emerge to life in form of; (1) Good thing like material and spiritual, (2) Ideas, ambition, (3) basic principle of human life attitude.
Good social value planting can be improved by the teacher in school by engaging pupils to understand the natural setting of each social problems and put it in its proportion, then formulating problem solving technique that could emerging high level of social skills in somebody, such as the skill in communication, negotiation, compromise, receive and give, inquiry, and justify problem objectively. (Darmadi, 2012, p. 27)
Value education is developed in setting of society that always coloring the purpose formula, so that the formula seems so contextual with social and culture of communities. Value education related to the effort to prepare pupils to be a good citizen, knows his/he right and obligation, and aware of his/her responsibilities as citizen. This is the influence of value education as the citizenship education.The root of all evil action is from the loss of good character. Strong character is the fundamental things, which can give an ability to human population to live together in peace and form a world that full with peace and goodness, free from violence and amoral act.
According to Samani et al (2012, p. 41), character is the way of thinking and behavior, which is special to every individual to live and cooperate, whether in family, society and nation. Person with good characteristic is individual who could make decision and able to responsible to his/her decision. Character can be considered as the value of human behavior related to God Almighty, him/herself, fellow human, environment and nationality which is formed in his/her thought, attitude, feeling, saying and acting based on religious norm, law, manner, culture, mores and ethic.
Character is influenced by heredity. Children’s behavior oftentimes influenced by his/her father or mother. Then environment; natural or social environment. In hard social environment,
- – normal. There is similarity between ethic
Etymologically, character is come from Latin kharakter, kharassaein, and
kharax,in Greece character is from word Charassein, which means sharpen or deepen. Character can be seen as a real
condition in someone’s personality that differs from someone else. Character and personality are both the nature of human and in someone’s individual. We used to call it behavior or attitude. Character is the internal human which affecting thought and deed. Character can be found in someone’s deed toward him/herself, someone else, duty given to him/her in other situation and condition. Character is human behavior related to God Almighty, him/herself, fellow human, environment, and nationality which is formed in thought, attitude, feeling, saying, and deed based on religious norm, law, cultural manner, and mores, (Gunawan, 2012, p. 3).
Character building is an important part of education performance. Character is the personality inherent in a person. Confucius said that people basically have the potential love of virtue, but if it is not accompanied by the potential for education and socialization after humans are born, then people can turn into animals, even worse. This is supported by the hadith of the Messenger of Allah that: “Every child is born in a state of nature, because of its parents make him Jewish, Christian or Zoroastrian.” This indicates that the potential cannot be left alone but need to be grown. Likewise, the characters that are part of the child's potential, must be nurtured and well educated, I'll be a pious child and rewarding, (Kamaruddin, 2012, p. 2)
Kementerian Pendidikan Nasional (2009, p. 9) also identifies a number of value of character building that based on religion, Pancasila, culture and purpose of national education which is: (1) Religious, (2) Honest, (3) Tolerant, (4) Discipline, (5) Work Hard, (6) Creative, (7) Independent, (8) Democratic, (9) Curious, (10) Spirit of Nationalism, (11) Love of Country, (12) Appreciate Achievement, (13) Friendly, Communicative (14) Love Peace, (15) Love to Read, (16) Care for the Environment, (17) Social Care, and (18) be Responsible.
Therefore, character education is the process of giving guidance to students to become a good human that having good character in the dimension of heart, thought, physic, feeling, will and work. Character education can be seen as the education of value, education of nature, education of moral, which purposed to develop student’s ability to give good bad decision, maintain the good thing, and bring the goodness into daily life with all his/her heart.
According to Elkind & Sweet (2004), character education is the deliberate effort for help people understand, care about, and acts upon core ethical values. When we think about the kind of character we want for our children, it is clear that we want them to be able to judge what is right, care deeply about what is right, and then do what they believe to be right, even in the face of pressure from without and temptation from within.
Categorizing value based on the consideration that the essence of behavior which has character is the realization of total function of psychological that cover all human personal potency (cognitive, affective, and psychomotor) and socio-cultural totality in the context of interaction (in family, education unit, and society) and last a lifetime. As show in the diagram below:
Atikatul Himmah & Evha Nazalatus, Moral Values in “The Hunger Games”…
context totality of psychosocial process Source: Desain Induk Pendidikan Karakter Kemendiknas, 2010.
Character education is not a process to memorize lesson for a test, or technique to answer a quiz. Character education needs habituation to do good, habituation to be honest, noble, ashamed of cheating, ashamed of laziness, ashamed to let the environment dirty. Character is not form instantly, but has to be trained seriously and proportionally to reach the ideal strong and shape. (Gunawan, 2012, p. 29).
Character education will be carried out well, if the teacher pays attention to some principles of character education. Kementerian Pendidikan Nasional (2010) gives 11 principles recommendation to materialize the effective character education as follow: 1) Promote the basic values of ethic as the basic character 2) Identify character comprehensively in order to cover the thought, feeling and attitude. 3) Using sharp approach, proactive and effective to build character 4) Create school community that has a concern 5) Give opportunity to the pupil to show good behavior 6) Have the scope toward meaningful and challenging curriculum that appreciate fellow pupils, build their character, and help them to success. 7) Working on the growth of motivation within pupils 8) Functioning all school staff as moral community that responsible toward character education and loyal to the same value
9) There is sharing of moral leadership and broad support in building character education initiative. 10) Functioning family and member of society as a partner in building character
11) Evaluating school character, function of school staff as the teacher of character, and positive character manifest within pupils life.
METHOD Research Design
In this study, the writer uses a descriptive qualitative method as a research design. The word qualitative implies an emphasis on processes and meanings that are not rigorously examined or measured (if measured at all) in term of quantity, amount, intensity, or frequency. Qualitative researcher stress as the socially constructed nature or reality, the inmate relationship between the researcher and what is studied, and the situational constraints that shape inquiry. Such researchers emphasize the value-laden nature of inquiry. They seek answers to questions that stress how social experience is created and given meaning. (Denzin and Lincoln, 1994:4).
Data Source
The data source of the study used Suzanne’s Novel “The Hunger Games” which focus on the main character. The genre of the novel is trilogy, adventure, and dystopian which published in September 14th, 2008. The data are taken from Novel "The Hunger Games" which determine the study contains of phrase, words and sentences in Novel "The Hunger Games" which is developed to
- – Picture: Character coherency in the
RESULTS The Analysis of Moral Values in The Hunger Games Novel to Build Students’ Character
After the data have been collected, the data analysis is presented. Steps of analyzing the data as follows: toward him/herself, society, environment, nation and God Almighty. Social care; a condition of caring to the social condition. And the last is appreciate achievement.
The moral values that can be implemented to build student’s character are independent; which is behavior or attitudes that not easily depend to someone else to complete his/her task. Friendly; also have role to build students’ character were as a friendly person, someone will have a good communication to others. Work hard; is an action that shows earnest effort to handle any obstacle to complete his/her duty as well as possible. Discipline; which is an action that shows behavior of orderly and obedient to rules and regulation. Love science; a way of thinking, act and behave that shows higher loyalty, care and appreciation toward science. Responsible;
As mentioned in previous chapter that Moral values are the standards of good and evil, which govern an individual’s behavior and choices. Individual’s morals may derive from society and government, religion, or self, here are the analysis of moral values in The Hunger Games Novel.
Moral action is an ability to make decision and moral feeling toward the real action. Those moral actions need to be facilitated so that it could be emerge and develop in daily interaction. Conducive social environment will emerge moral action; it really needed in moral learning.
d. Discovering and explaining the moral values in The Hunger Games Novel as a student character building.
c. Determining the component part of each event in The Hunger Games Novel that contain moral values related to student character building.
b. Classifying and making note (direct quotation) based on the data which is The Hunger Games Novel that contain moral values related to student character building.
a. Reading the data that have been collected from The Hunger Games Novel that contain moral values related to student character building.
Atikatul Himmah & Evha Nazalatus, Moral Values in “The Hunger Games”…
research integrated with the moral value constructed the study to portray the real life. It is the critical thinking from the writer of the data, when The writer start to make frame of the study of moral value indispensable of the main character of the Novel. The object of the study is artwork form.
d. Discovering and explaining the moral values in The Hunger Games Novel as a student character building.
c. Determining the component part of each event in The Hunger Games Novel that contain moral values related to student character building.
b. Classifying and making note (direct quotation) based on the data which is The Hunger Games Novel that contain moral values related to student character building.
a. Reading the data that have been collected from The Hunger Games Novel that contain moral values related to student character building.
After the data have been collected, the data analysis is presented. Steps of analyzing the data as follows:
Researcher has some steps to get the data which is reading the The Hunger Games Novel and find out the characteristics as the theory guided, and the researcher understand from the view point of student character building. The following is choosing and selecting the data dealing with the problem that will be discussed. After that, collecting the data that have relation to the problem of the study. And finally retyping all data that have been chosen and selected base on the original quotation existing in The Hunger Games Novel.
Data Collection
Data Analysis
Those 8 characters mentioned above are all good character that could be implemented to build student’s character. Not only in a scope of school environment, but also in a civil society as the real field of their life, because they will face different kind of characters not only in a role of protagonist character, but they will also face the others.
CONCLUSION AND SUGGESTION Conclusion
The result of the research is that there are values of character education on the Suzanne Collin’s novel “The Hungger gamer. The writer use to analyze the main character Katniss Everdeen. Her characters has attitude showing the values of character education. The moral values in The Hunger Games Novel that could be implemented to build student’s character are (1) Independent, (2) Friendly, (3) Work Hard, (4) Discipline, (5) Love Science, (6) Responsible, (7) Social Care and (8) Appreciate achievement.
Although setting of The Hunger Games Novel is in foreign country, but the values of character education shown in
The Hunger Games Novel can be implemented in our country, even thought the culture is different to Indonesian culture.In the globalization era, our students need a role model, and this novel can be use as the role to build students’ character.
Suggestion
If independency, friendly, work hard, discipline, responsible, social care is the key to to achieve success, while the purpose of education is to develop student’s potency to get success in future life, then those character should be developed in education.
Good novel that contain good message, examples of good character, achievement that will be reached if we do goodness, discipline, responsible and other good moral values should be supported and watched so that our children will learn about moral values from novel and hopefully it could create a good character.
To build the noble character, the correct effort is through education, since education has important and central role in planting, transforming and developing positive character to students. Therefore, education is the media to build student’s character.
Bibliography
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- – an attitude of a person to do his/her duty
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